“Be careful of reading health books. You might die of a misprint.”
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“There is no sadder sight than a lifter who knows his inol but cannot pull five plates. Straps are fine.”
-Mark Twain
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HA! I haven’t actually lol’ed at a comment in awhile. you got a literal lol out of me here.
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Do most people not track volume or intensity here? Since both have an inverse relationship, INOL makes an attempt to equate the relationship of the two combined. It’s just an indicator to give you a point of reference when trying to manage fatigue. Say you started out on a 5x5 at 5 straight sets at 75% (Inol= 1.) and after so many months you stall, feel beat up or want to change to a program that ramps intensity and/or you want to focus on speed work while maintaining your volume base. Now our new program calls for 55/65/75%x5, plus 8x3@55%. (5÷45+5÷35+5÷25=.45, plus your 24 total speed reps at 55%. 24÷45=.55) Main works sets (.45)+speed work sets(.55)=1.005 vs your old 5x5 program at an Inol of 1. Not to mention the added 475lbs of total volume your new program prescribes. Looking back at your Inol scores in your log you can see that it is quite manageable and won’t be biting off more than you can chew and move on. It’s rediculously easy and literally takes seconds to calculate.
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I don’t, no.
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Not like you’re describing, no. I mostly just try to bust ass when I lift weights, backing off when I feel like busting ass might produce a poor outcome.
Can you explain how these calculations have produced improved outcomes for you?
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And there’s nothing wrong with that and vice versa honestly. Doctors use biomarkers such as cholesterol as an indicator for coronary and vascular disease as well as blood pressure and pulse. Joel Jamieson and others use HRV to indicate an increase or decrease in cardiovascular conditioning. Mike Tuscherer uses RPE. 5/3/1 urges bar speed. Westside DE uses bar speed as an indicator to ultimately prescribe load. On and on. Some people prefer to use jack shit. And that’s fine too. Look, if one is honestly putting more work in trying to manage things like this than they are in the gym, then I would be one of the first to say fuck it and chuck it, but it takes me less than a minute of my time and gives me what has been a pretty accurate frame of reference so far.
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Yea, a recent example, I have been doing higher frequency WUP type programming and my sessions are just work up to one set of AMRAPP (Perfectly Possible) at a specified weight and continue on with assistance. If I PR by so many reps I bump the weight next time. Well, this session was a 5lb bump that I ended up getting 3 reps less than the previous session. The last rep slowed and I felt I had 1 maybe 2 in the tank, but technique wasn’t breaking down, so I thought wtf. I ended up taking 4 more reps at that weight and they moved super fast, so I took 3 more singles at about 5% increments and they moved fast. I ultimately ended up dropping down to the work weight once more and taking another AMRAPP for 8 reps. The two sets looked identical as far as bar speed and technique looking sharp. I left feeling like any other session. That was about 3wks ago and my shoulder girdle is still inflamed. I will be the first to admit that I let ego and immaturity get in the way of my self constraint. My weekly Inol is around .8-1.25 per lift. That session was right around 1 in itself not counting my other pressing session of the week. If I would have taken the time to flip a few pages in my journal, it would have saved me a little pain and it completely stalled my progress. I guaged the whole session off bar speed and technique, but didn’t take in account frequency and the volume of intensity that I’m accustomed to for a total week. I would have had a clear cut indication before hand that I was fucking up on that big of a scale.
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I’m sorry if I wasn’t clear. When I speak of outcomes I’m referring to objectively measurable improvements. In lifting performance, body composition, or whatever your stated goal is.
What you described seems extremely subjective, unless your measure for success is whatever it is you just described.
Edit: I’m not trying to be a dick, just curious about your methods and outcomes.
Oh no I didn’t think you came of as such. The only things I keep track of are pr’s in terms of weight for reps, volume and volume pr’s, resting heart rate in the a.m., how long it takes me to get to, how long I can maintain certain intensity zones and how long it takes me to return to baseline during conditioning sessions. I follow those loosely, checking about once or twice a week. I do KB Swings primarily for conditioning and track the volume of swings. I follow a tape measure, scale and a mirror very loosely. Almost always eat the same things every week. My main priority is getting my recovery in check. I’ve always been one to do too much. Idk if most are this way, but I won’t know whether that is the case until two and three days later. I have to consciously turn it off and am finding the more rigid my routine the better. I’m about to the point that I’ve completely bought in to less is more for me and the more I buy into it, the more everything else is seeming to fall into place. Check ups at the doc, lower bp, cholesterol, etc. Resting HR is going down, mood is up, etc. Inol has just been one more indicator to help gauge fatigue. I know it’s not that big of an issue to most and people throw around the term overtraining and some buy it and some don’t, but I have no doubt I was at that point three years ago, when I took strength training seriously again after a close family tradgedy. When you were in the insomniatic state I was in, erectial disfunction, high biomarkers, etc, I had no doubt there’s something to it. A little over a year later after following my intuition, everything is back to normal and I feel as if I’m in the best shape of my life. I apologise for the novels btw, i just felt it necessary to understand why I seem to take it so seriously.
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Roger that. Thanks for the explanation.
Because without it you wouldn’t get boners. Gotcha.
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The longer you’ve been training, the more important this stuff is.
Working your way “up” from not strong, to becoming stronger, you are almost always working below your capacity. You don’t know how strong you are.
If you’ve been around for awhile, and you’re a little broke down, it’s way easier to overdue it. It’s too easy to base the workload on how hard you worked when you were younger, stronger and more conditioned. Like over estimating how much you need.
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Dude, seriously eat a dick. I try to give everyone the respect they are due, but you sir are a punk bitch. I’ve yet to see a post that you actually contribute intelligent conversation, rather than mock. Maybe, I just don’t read enough of these threads or maybe your fuckery just stands out above others, but either way go fuck yourself.
Well aren’t you a hot headed young gentleman?
Perhaps I shall. What’s its inol score? I need to know what I’m working with here. I would expect a flaccid one would be easier to eat, but I could be wrong.
You take internet forum comments very seriously. It’s a quality I find very attractive in a man.
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That seems ironic, you’re calling him out for being annoyed at shit posting and you’re annoyed at a concept that helps you plan/ periodize workouts.
but only one is relevant to a weight lifting forum.
Why are you calling him out for being mad when you’re mad too? waste of time
Sometimes people just like to waste time. Just like you did with your post and I’m doing responding to yours.
It’s a vicious, vicious cycle.
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but why are you calling me out for being mad at him being mad when you’re mad too?
Where wil it end? Communism, that’s where.
Think about that, comrade.
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Thread of the week here.
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